8 Compelling Reasons Why You Should be Live Streaming Your Conferences

Live Stream Your Conference

By now, if you are not familiar with the term live streaming, you need to be, as it is an important tool for you to maximize the value of your organization’s digital strategy. Due to the unproven fear of cannibalization, many Association Executives are not familiar with the powerful benefits that can come from live streaming and how live streaming can have an enormous positive impact on your Association.

Here are 8 compelling reasons why you should be live streaming your next meeting/conference. Once you live stream one, you will quickly realize you should probably be live streaming most, if not all, of your meetings, both large and small.

1) Fulfill Your Mission

If you look at the mission of most Associations, a large part of that mission is to educate the community that they serve. No Association’s mission says we will only educate those that can attend our annual conference. Live streaming provides the opportunity to educate a broader scope of your members or community by bringing the education to them. The best way to maximize the ability to educate is to deliver your education in multiple formats – live on-site, live on-line and on-demand. This approach will help you better fulfill your mission of educating your community.

2) There is a 10-30% Conversion of Virtual to Physical Attendee

Are you racking your brain trying to figure out how to increase the physical attendance at your meeting? When you build an on-line community via live streaming, anywhere from 10-30% of those attending the conference as a fully paid virtual attendee will attend the physical conference the following year. That could mean 25 to 150 additional attendees each year without spending a dime on marketing. Many virtual attendees know very little about your Association or conference. Through the introductory exposure to your education from attending the live stream, they get excited, and inspired to attend the conference the following year.

When you need less than 50 virtual attendees to break even, you can see that generating a profit comes quickly and mounts up fast. Imagine how you could enhance your conference for your physical attendees with an extra $25,000, $50,000 or how about $250,000 from your virtual attendees. That’s the experience we have seen from our Association clients that are probably no different than you. There is no need to sweat over not having live streaming in your budget. This is not a budgeted item, this is a revenue generating business opportunity for your Association.

4) The Virtual Attendees are Praising Their Organizations for Their Forward Thinking Attitude

There is one thing that every live stream has in common. The virtual attendees are extremely grateful for their Association bringing the education to them and allowing them to be part of the event, even though they cannot make it in person. The rave reviews and comments we see consistently talk about how this is the best thing their Association has ever done, what a great member benefit, this is almost as good as being there, I have networked more online than I would have done in person. And on and on and on. See lots more comments at https://www.digitellinc.com/event-feedback

5) Reach Millennials

Maybe this isn’t your focus yet, but, whether you accept it or not, the Millennials are coming. Data shows that by 2025 anywhere from 50% – 75% of your Association will be made up of Millennials. Imagine what your Association will look like if you haven’t done anything to attract them. Millennials are digital online learners. Attending a live stream is how you are going to hook them, educate them on the benefits of becoming a member of your Association and show them that your Association understands the needs of the digital generation. The time to start that process is now, in 2016.

6) If Your Physical Attendees Need to Cancel Last Minute, then Switch them Over to the Live Stream, Saving Thousands of Dollars in Potential Lost Revenue for your Association.

Do you have cancellations at your conferences? Of course you do. That’s par for the course of running an event. Lots of things come up in life at the last minute that prevent them from attending your conference. The course of action for most Associations is to refund that person their money and move on. If it is flu season or bad weather strikes, the cost of those refunds can add up. Live streaming your conference provides you an alternative option for those cancelling that you don’t have right now. Clients are telling us that 80% or better of the people cancelling are watching the live stream instead of requesting their money back. How many thousands of dollars could that save you?

Regardless of the price of your conference, Digitell has a business model that will result in your virtual attendees happily paying the full registration price. As a result, covering your costs and generating a profit comes quickly, and for most Associations requires less than 50 virtual attendees. Charging full price means that even if you lose some physical attendees to become virtual attendees, you do not lose any revenue. Imagine adding 100-500 additional, full paying registrants to your meeting. What was the last marketing effort your Association did that increased your attendance by that much? The best part is all of those additional attendees have no impact on your space requirements, your food requirements or your hotel needs.

The best approach when just starting out is not to dip your toe in the water and live stream one or two sessions. This approach will result in generating minimal revenue and ending up losing money, only to come away feeling like this didn’t work for us and not do it again. The best approach is to work with Digitell to develop a strategy, invest in marketing and make your first event a huge success. Then you will be excited about the possibilities and have something to build on for year 2 and 3.

8) There Will Not Be Any Cannibalization of Your Physical Event

If this is something your Association is still afraid of and that is what is getting in the way of you moving forward with this technology, you need to put those fears to rest and move on. After 7 years of live streaming thousands of conferences, there are only a handful of Associations who have experienced any noticeable cannibalization. 98% of Associations have seen no impact on their physical event as a result of live streaming their conference. Despite this data, many board members are still letting this fear prevent their Association from experiencing the amazing benefits that can be realized from live streaming.

To learn more, or to book Digitell to live stream your next conference, contact Steve Parker at sparker@digitellinc.com or 800-679- 3646

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Digitell was formed in 1985 as a conference recording company. Sessions were recorded and delivered on cassette tapes. Over the last 30 years, Digitell has evolved with the changes in technology and... [Read More...]